Coming Soon: SAAM 2014

Today I'm excited to be able to share with you a look into the U.S. national Sexual Assault Awareness Month campaign[1] for 2014. A heads up to those who may not know, every April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), and NSVRC provides free tools and materials to support the incredible SAAM activism that happens across the country. By January of 2014 resources will be shared with the world on our website and through our mailing list. (You can contact resources@nsvrc.org[2] if you'd like to be added to our SAAM mailing list).

From January through April we actively highlight, share and promote SAAM and prevention activities on our website, blogs[3], and social networks. Really, we do this throughout the year, but it gets a whole lots tealer for SAAM. FYI, teal is the color[4] that traditionally symbolizes SAAM (but we encourage you to break out the whole crayon box and forget the lines on the page when it comes to activism).

Coming soon

Back to SAAM 2014! Each year our resources tend to center around a theme chosen with insight from conversations with and trends in the field. In the past the themes have corresponded to specific populations like college campuses[5], or themes have related to concepts like engaging bystanders[6] and sexual violence in the workplace[7]. For the past two years we've talked about healthy sexuality[8], and it's been a positive splash in our prevention work. Healthy sexuality is an approach to sexual violence prevention [9]that provides individuals and communities with information and skills to express sexuality in positive, life-enriching ways. In 2012 SAAM resources covered healthy sexuality 101, and in 2013 round two focused specifically on child development[10]. For SAAM 2014 we are very excited to be offering our third and final installment of the "It's time to talk about it" healthy sexuality campaigns, and this year the campaign focuses on healthy sexuality and young people.

SAAM 2014 theme: Healthy sexuality & young people

The upcoming campaign will provide tools on healthy adolescent sexuality[11] and engaging youth. This April, use your voice to impact our future. Everyone has a role to play, and we are excited to share tools to promote a healthy foundation for relationships, health and sexual violence prevention. Along the way to April be sure to stayed tuned on the blog for updates. It's never too early to get excited for April, prevention and resources in English and Spanish[12].

Be sure to share your thoughts with us too! Leave a comment below to let us know what you think about this year's campaign theme.